iPhone 5 knock-offs available in China for $47

It looks like the economic meltdown has reached China as the bottom is falling out of the market for shoddy Apple fakes.

The iPhone 5 clones, which are purportedly based on a leaked case specification for the highly-anticipated handset, were going for $108 when we first reported on them last week but have now dropped to just $57 according to Giz China.

Although the plastic facsimiles might look at first glance like the real deal, they come with a nasty resistive touch screen, no on-board memory (you'll have to add your own MicroSD cards) and are powered by a Java-based operating system rather than iOS5. They do, however, come in a choice of black or white.

Although they might look quite nice in your fake Gucci handbag, you'll probably have great difficulty using them to make a call or run any kind of software.

Apple's genuine article is expected to drop some time in September, or maybe October, depending on whose runes you are reading